Our Time is Now
by The PalletShipping Ninja
Summary: A/G, Semi-AU. Gary was born with the ability to travel through time but is unable to control the pattern of anomalies that occur. However, his rival and new love interest, Ash, is more than willing to pursue their relationship despite the odds that are stacked against them. PalletShipping, M/M, slash. (May become M later on. Possible Mpreg.)
1. His Undivided Attention

A/N: It all began with a parody trailer to The Time-Traveller's Wife. Then came an amv, a time-traveller AU for PalletShipping Day whipped up just hours before the deadline. And then finally a lowly amateur sat down and declared, "One day I'll make this into a fanfic!"

And so I did. This is the result.

1: His Undivided Attention

_Ash:_

Perhaps I've always known that Gary was different to the other kids, or perhaps I only noticed it after he told me. Sometimes you can just tell when something strange is lurking in the folded corners of somebody's personality, even if they themselves aren't currently aware of it. No matter how tightly it's compressed you still get a twinge in your stomach, a shiver on your spine, a metallic taste in your mouth. It's something you just pick up, no matter how hard you try not to.

I suppose I always thought it had something to do with the fact that I looked up to him and the rare moments where he let his guard down made me realise he was the same as me. Maybe that truly was it for me, anyway, or maybe I sensed something all along but was too young and dumb to say anything. I guess I'll never know.

I hate not knowing where and when he is when I want to know where and when he is. It never used to bother me before I knew about what he'd been going through this whole time, but once I began thinking about it I couldn't stop. It was like a whirlpool had swept me up and I was struggling desperately against the current.

Time's a strange thing. It can be compared endlessly to an array of pointless everyday things. Some say that you can't turn back time, that it's as solid as a diamond, steady and unchangeable.

I prefer to think of it as water, strong but lenient. It tries to defy travellers like Gary, it really does, but it can be bent and pushed and pried under the right circumstances. Gary shapes the time we spend more than I do, and that didn't used to scare me. But now it does.

I hate the feeling of falling behind, but it's something I'm so used to now I can't even try to blank it out. Like the pages of an unfinished story, Gary is writing in the details as I leaf through the first chapter, open-minded and very much confused.

...

[Gary is 20, Ash is 20]

_Gary:_

Time is a really weird thing that can't be defined to something so simple as a word, because it's nothing and everything and absolutely infinitely impossible while still being possible. Travelling through time is something a lot easier to explain.

Picture this: you're reading a book, perhaps looking over research notes, maybe training with your pokemon, possibly even holding a normal conversation, when your attention wanders for a split second, or you hear a high-pitched sound that gives you a headache, or you feel a tingling in your fingers and toes that makes them curl as you wince and try to compress the feeling.

But it's too late because you're slipping away and you have no way to stop it. You try clinging onto whatever or whoever is near you, be it the nearest chair or your microwave or your boyfriend's shoulders. But you blink and they're all gone, and you're standing in an endless stretch of woods or a busy street, wondering where and when you are and how to find somebody to crash with until the cycle repeats itself.

Fortunately, today is not one of those days.

Today I wake up and I'm in my present time. It's a normal day, not a bad one, and I'm twenty years old.

I'm staring up at the ceiling and feel the warmth of the sun seeping through cracks in the heavy fabric of the curtains. The ceiling is dimly lit, an overwhelming autumn hue that intoxicates me. I take a guess and decide it must be 6AM, before reaching for my digital watch and smirking. 6AM, on the dot.

As I roll over I feel stirring and watch intently as the curve in Ash's lower back arches slightly. His hair is ruffled with sleep, unkempt as he tosses and turns. I'm so tempted to run my fingers through it but I'm worried that I'll wake him and lose this sweet side of him before I fully register it in my mind.

He's soft and safe.

I never want to let him go.

With a sigh I sit up, massaging my hands as this all too familiar concept washes over my head. Ash lying in the bed beside me, mumbling something unknown to my ears in such a small voice thick with sleep that I can't quite make it out. Myself watching him. The gold of the sunrise, the crumpling of the sheets where we found ourselves cocooned last night.

Even as the nagging feeling of being pulled away in the back of my mind begins to grow, this day has begun just like any other and I'm praying nothing changes.

...

_Ash:_

When I wake up, Gary isn't sleeping beside me and I inwardly freak out; instantly the same thought floods my head as it has done every other time.

_He's gone again, isn't he?_

Then I hear the clink of the shower being shut off and I breathe a sigh of relief, allowing the sudden rush of panic to leave me.

I'm fine and he's here. He's fine and I'm here.

When he emerges from the bathroom a tidal wave of steam emerges with him. He's dressed but only just, his stay-at-home-day jacket falling from his shoulders, towel slipping from his head. As Gary approaches me his damp hair smells of my shampoo and I smile without it truly meeting my core.

He only uses my shampoo when he's feeling insecure, like he's ready to drop his life and fall again into the past or the future.

"Don't go," I mutter, and he lets out a short laugh. The two of us know that the my scent doesn't help him, not really; rather, he uses it to convince me that he can cling onto the present when he's ebbing away. It never works, but he's only twenty and life is still young. Maybe one day it will save him, maybe it won't.

"I'm fine," he says, but I can sense in his voice that he's holding back, straining for calm and normality in our early morning conversation. Today feels like a bad one, even if he doesn't think so. I sometimes get different gut feelings to him and right now feels like today will be bad, even if he's trying to convince me everything's normal.

We get up and eat, make small talk over breakfast, before he disappears into his study to look over the research reports he's been working on for the past six days. I let out Pikachu and we work on some new moves for a while, wondering how best to prepare for the rematch against the last trainer I battled who was going for my frontier symbol.

At twelve I begin to make lunch, knocking on the door of Gary's study and calling him. When he doesn't reply I begin to wonder if he's disappeared again, but fortunately he pokes his head around the door just in time to reassure me that he's still here.

Because at this point, it's safe to assume that whenever he's not here, he's not here at all.

...

_Gary:_

The day continues as a normal one, but the tugging feeling is growing and my arms are beginning to grow goosebumps. Ash notices this and furrows his brow. As I shiver he takes one of my arms and rubs it with his hands as if trying to keep it warm.

"Maybe my touch will stop you from going," he says when I ask why.

"It's never worked in the past."

"You never know. There's always a chance."

As I sit back, feeling the anticipation eating me, I murmur quietly, "What's the date today?"

He pulls out his pokedex and checks the calendar application before it drops from his hands with a small clatter. Glancing up at him, I see his face is a little pale.

"Ash? You okay?"

He turns to look me in the eye, suddenly seeming a little overwhelmed.

"Gary, today is May 3rd…"

"And?"

He rests his forehead against mine and I feel my hand beginning to chip away and disappear. I reach up with fingers that are no longer there and try to brush straying bangs out of his eyes to no avail.

Ash laughs shakily upon seeing my failed attempts to comfort him and gives me a little smile, before reaching into a drawer in our coffee table for an envelope that has been growing dust for the past ten years. As he presses it into the hand of mine that's still there, he mutters three simple words that make me tingle and my travelling accelerate.

"Today's the day…"

And then I'm gone.

* * *

_**Ever Grande City**_

_**The Hoenn Region**_

_**2005**_

[Gary is 20, Ash is 13]

_Ash:_

The day has come to a close and my battle against Tyson ended in defeat.

It hurts that I lost when I was so close to winning, but it's only my third league. I'm not an idiot. I know these things take time.

Even so, May, Brock and Max have been treating me like a baby, like I'm something delicate, prodding the league map in my face and suggesting we celebrate at one of the more expensive onsite restaurants.

But before anything else I want to hand in my pokemon, to be healed up.

"We can celebrate tomorrow, when my pokemon are well."

Despite May's complaints she and the others accompany me back on this long trek to the pokemon centre. When we get there, however, Nurse Joy hands me something.

"What's this?"

In my hands, a small brown envelope rests.

"No idea," Nurse Joy replies with a shrug. "A man came to deliver it and asked me to give it to you when you arrived back at the centre. He didn't leave his name. All I know is that he was a researcher because he was wearing a badge from the Evolutionary Conference being held on the other side of town."

"A researcher, huh?" I mutter, glancing down at the envelope. "I wonder what he wants…"

"Are you going to open it?" May asks, peering at my hands. I can tell she's, if anything, even more desperate than me to find out what this is about, so I nod quickly before tearing the envelope open.

A small note jotted onto a messily torn piece of notepaper reads the following:

_Ash,_

_Meet me in The Crabhammer at 6:30. Please come alone. I'll explain later._

"What's The Crabhammer?"

"A restaurant located on the edge of Ever Grande City," May pipes up helpfully. "It specialises in seafood. Pretty empty most of the time though, from what I've heard."

"How do you even find out about this stuff?" I wonder aloud, genuinely marvelling at how she has enough time to memorise every restaurant onsite.

"So are we going to go, Ash?" she interrupts, raising her eyebrows. "It sounds creepy and weird to me. Super suspicious."

Brock shakes his head with a nervous laugh. "I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, guys…"

"But what if it's a trap?" Max points out. "Something set up by Team Rocket to get you alone in order to steal Pikachu! It's exactly the kind of thing they would do!"

"I'll be fine," I reassure them quickly, noticing Nurse Joy's concern at the mention of Team Rocket. "I'm sure it's nothing to be afraid of. But the note says I need to go alone, you see?"

"Oh, we won't cause any trouble!" May cuts in. "If it's nothing to worry about we'll just leave you to it, alright?"

"Well… okay…"

I turn to Pikachu. "I'm leaving you here to heal up as well, okay, Pikachu? You took a lot of damage in that battle. You deserve some rest."

With a disgruntled, "Pika…" Pikachu reluctantly leaves my shoulder and hops onto the front desk.

"Pikachu doesn't like using his pokeball, but he'll be fine," I say to Nurse Joy, who nods understandingly and rubs behind Pikachu's cheek bulbs.

I have my doubts about how much of a fuss May's going to make if the meeting does turn out to be some sort of scam, but nonetheless they follow in my steps as I hand in my poke balls before heading out of the pokemon centre and towards The Crabhammer.

It's a pretty gaudy-looking restaurant, with a giant mechanical corphish pimped out with neon lights hanging from the roof and giant oversized lettering reading _The Crabhammer! Nothing Corphishy About It!_

"I guess this is the place."

"Kind of weird for a researcher to want to meet here," Max remarks, just as appalled as I am.

"I don't like the look of this place," May mutters from beside Brock. "It's creepy and kind of phony-looking. I bet that letter really is from Team Rocket."

"Even if it is their plan won't work because I don't have any of my pokemon on me, see?" I butt in, motioning to my empty person. "Come on, it's already 6:35. This researcher will already be on edge without me being any later. Lets get this over with."

Holding my head high, I march into The Crabhammer and take in my surroundings. Gaudy purple and red checked floors greet me, with deep crimson walls and black and white checked tablecloths. The whole place looks like it was decked out in '87 and nobody bothered to keep it up to date with the times.

It seems exactly like the type of thing Team Rocket would pull.

As I'm ready to spin on my heels and leave the restaurant, a voice calls out to me.

But it's no, "Prepare for trouble!" and it's no, "Make it double."

It's something far more unnerving.

"Hey, Ashy-boy! Over here! You're not bailing on me, are you?"

Freezing in my tracks, it takes me a few moments to turn around. When I do, at the back of the room, I spot him.

My rival, my friend, Gary Oak. But… older?

...

_Gary:_

Ash stares at me as though I have two heads and I try not to laugh. This is the first time I've seen him like this, with this reaction to the sight of me so much older than he is. Mind you, it doesn't take much to freak him out right now, given that he's thirteen years old and in this moment blissfully unaware of my condition.

Although, taking his current expression into account, he's probably trying to connect the dots as I speak.

"Ash? What're you-" May, the bandana-wearing coordinator who has been making passes at me from the very first time we met (for me), is now watching me with a stunned look on her face. "Huh? Who's that?"

Next comes a small boy I instantly identify as Max, the bespectacled fresh meat gym leader of Petalburg City, who points at me and gasps, "I know you from your documentary about Kabutops!"

(Which, while I'm extremely flattered that he doesn't just know me from Ash's endless woven stories about me, slightly concerns me, as he hasn't noticed the massive age gap between the twenty-year-old me sitting before him and the thirteen-year-old me on the documentary.)

Finally Brock emerges from the doorway, takes one look at me and exclaims, "Is that seriously you?"

"The answer to that question you so politely phrased is 'yes'."

I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to compress my temper. While I'm by no means peeved that Ash brought his friends along even after I specifically asked for him to come alone, I'm regretful to say I know his friends well enough to realise that poor little Ashy-boy probably had no say in this matter and they were probably the ones dragging him to this gross little diner on the edge of town.

So instead of commenting on this, I motion for them to sit down. "Are you going to just stand there all night? Come and sit down. I have to explain a few things."

As the group mutter to each other and hesitantly seat themselves around the booth I picked out towards the back of the diner, I reach into the lab coat that I picked up from the hotel I was somehow booked into and pull out a small napkin, identical to the ones from the diner, with small notes scribbled messily onto it.

The handwriting, which I've identified as thirteen-year-old Ash's, is scrawled on both sides of the folded napkin and dictate the kind of things I'm supposed to say and do (or rather, what not to say and do) in this fated meeting of ours.

_Don't drop too many facts on us at once; Word things carefully to prevent paradox-y hoohas; Don't tell them about us; Especially don't tell __me__ about us; Don't forget to mention the date; The date is May 3__rd__ in our time, September 9__th__ in theirs; Be careful not to give too much information about the future away; Don't order the soup of the day._

I laugh a little at the last one, picturing Ash's face in my mind. What kind of things must he have been thinking as he wrote this list? _When_ exactly did he write this list?

Seeing their curious expressions, I clear my throat.

"So, uh. As you can probably tell, I'm not the same Gary Oak you currently know exists."

"What is this?" Ash mutters in disbelief. "Gary… I mean… you _are_ Gary, right?"

"Don't ask stupid questions, Ashy-boy," I say, deciding next time to bring something I can hit them with every time they do.

May looks up at me uncomfortably.

"Excuse me, but… who are you?" she asks. "I, um… I don't think we've met before."

I chuckle.

"No, we haven't."

From beside her, Max's mouth falls open.

"How can you not know who he is, May? He's only Professor Oak's _grandson_! Not to mention at thirteen years old he's already one of Kanto's top researchers! How can you _not_ know this?"

"Sorry, Max, but I'm not a geek like you!" she snaps at him. "And don't yell at me!"

"I'm not a geek!" he cries, incredulous.

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Hey, cut it out, we're in a public place," Brock intervenes quickly. Ash has barely even noticed, though. He's still watching me, completely dumbfounded.

"Some of you know me, some of you don't. I'm Gary Oak, from Pallet Town. Ash and I have been rivals since we were small. I still consider our rivalry to be strong, even though at this point we were - are - obviously taking different paths. And, uh…" I lick my lips, feeling their eyes bearing into me. "The thirteen-year-old me is currently residing in Kanto, in an island research centre. The me sitting here right now is from a different time. A, uh… a point in the future."

"But how on Earth did you get here, Gary?" Ash finally asks. "I mean, did you encounter celebi?"

I shake my head.

"I have in the past, but I arrived earlier by myself. Time travel is a strange thing, but it's something that I contain nonetheless." I smile faintly at Ash. "I'm a time traveller."

...

_Ash:_

I stare at him, not sure if I heard right.

"You're a… time traveller?" I repeat carefully. He nods.

"Yep."

"Huh." I lean back. "Please spin me a story a little less crazy."

Gary frowns at me from across the table.

"I'm telling the truth, Ashy. The truth is confusing and it probably won't do any good right now, but that's life. One day the truth has got to come out, and one day it'll have to come to me, Gary Oak, fourteen years old, February 1st. One day you'll have to tell me this story of how I came to visit you, and how I exist, and how the reason he's standing on the opposite side of your campfire in a forest clearing in Sinnoh instead of safely tucked in bed back in Kanto is because he's a time traveller. I won't be there to break this to him, so you're my best shot."

I watch him, wide-eyed and alarmed by how serious his tone is, and sit up straight again.

"You do know how crazy this sounds, right?"

"You're not the first to have told me," he says without batting an eye. He passes me a napkin and as I take it I freeze. My handwriting is scrawled all over, but these are words I've never written on a napkin I've never seen before.

"What is this…?"

"You see this napkin, Ash? You, seven years from today, gave it to me this afternoon when I disappeared. You handed it to me in that stupid brown envelope and told me to come here, that 'today was the day'. Now, where did this napkin come from? I certainly don't know. Did you keep the napkin and write down these famous rules in the future, or did you write down these famous rules right this moment and simply keep the napkin safe, preserved, until the truth came out seven years later? It's like the togepi and the egg. Which came first? We'll never know."

"Isn't this entire napkin one big paradox?" Max pipes up from next to me, eyes as big as saucers. "I mean, if nobody knows where or when it came from it shouldn't logically exist, right?"

Gary shrugs.

"Maybe. But even if we don't know when these famous Ashy-boy rules were written, one can always take a wild guess at where the napkin came from." He plucks his napkin from beside his cutlery and dangles it from his fingers for all of us to see. The pattern imprinted on the edges are a perfect match to that shown on the napkin with writing.

May gasps and leans forward, eyes round.

"That's so freaky," she breathes.

"Tell me about it. At least now you know why I didn't pick out a better place for us to meet," Gary chuckles.

I frown and stare at the napkin, turning it over. Right in the bottom corner is a message that Gary has missed.

_Please don't hate Gary._

I stiffen in my seat.

_What would I write this for? How could I ever hate Gary?_

"You know I don't hate you, right?" I blurt out. He raises his eyebrows at me.

"Well I'd hope not, given that for the past few years you've been following me around like a love struck skitty."

I feel a blush of mortification rising in my face.

"What are you talking about? Don't give people the wrong idea," I growl.

"So you claim to be a time-traveller," Brock states, saving me further humiliation. Gary's eyes narrow.

"I never 'claimed' anything. I have the proof right here." He plucks the napkin from my hands and waves it in front of Brock's face. "There's no denying this handwriting is Ash's. And that the design of the napkin - even the fibres - are the same as the ones served in this restaurant. Yet this napkin is crumpled, dusty and carrying seven extra years on it. Can you come up with a logical reason for that?"

The table falls into silence.

At last, I decide to speak up.

"So how are you here? I mean… _how_ are you a time-traveller?"

He smiles at me.

"You say you've seen celebi too, Ashy?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah."

Gary leans back in his seat.

"You remember that time you encountered celebi, right? The boy that you saved that time… that boy was - is - none other than my grandpa, Professor Oak."

I stare at him, completely overwhelmed.

_This whole time… those weeks of subdued silence, the feeling of knowing I would never see Sammy again… and all this time he's been…_

"Ash, you've blanched," Gary says with a chuckle, and it takes me a few moments to respond.

"H-How did you find out about that? Did Professor Oak tell you?"

He grins.

"No. You did. You from the future, that is. And then gramps confirmed it for me when I called you a freak and returned to Pallet Town. I've already visited gramps - that was about two years back - to explain the situation, so you don't have to worry. All you will have to do, Ashy-boy, is be my messenger."

...

_Gary:_

Ash watches me with a look of clear disbelief on his face. Not that I can blame him; I'm pretty sure when he dropped this shell on me I was making a similar expression.

"I don't understand what celebi's meeting with Professor Oak has anything to do with you," he says at last. "Something that happened fifty years ago shouldn't affect you at all."

"Yeah, I sort of figured you'd be like this. But listen here. " I lean forward and meet his gaze, ignoring the others around us and focusing solely on him. I'm a renowned pokemon researcher now. At the age of thirteen I travelled to Sinnoh, hoping the wide open spaces would distract me from all of these thoughts, about time travel and consequences and everything. And then you happened, Ash."

"What did he do?" May asks, drinking in my every word. Ignoring her, I continue to watch Ash, who is staring back at me with the same fierce expression he always shows when I'm trying to explain something to him; stiff with confusion but still so determined to understand.

"By the age of fifteen," I continue, "I began looking at evolution, genetics and the effects that pokemon of legend have on humans around them. With this I managed to extract DNA from both myself and grandpa to compare samples. There's some sort of radiation from celebi that stimulates a reaction in the human DNA. By being in such close contact with celebi, grandpa's genes mutated and I happened. I inherited this mutation, and as a result I often find myself lost in time." I glance around at their different expressions; confusion; intrigue; amazement; disbelief. "But like celebi I have a home. In my present… which happens to be your future."

After my longwinded speech the group stare for a few moments, too stunned to speak.

"…I still don't understand, though, Gary. Even if it's the conclusion that makes the most sense… what proof do you have?"

"The fact that I changed my area pokemon research to this particular field," I mutter, leaning back, "was so I could look more into celebi's genetics and see if the time-travelling genes were the same as mine. It took me several years to eventually find one… of course, you helped out." I frown. "How did you know where to find it, anyway?"

"How should I know?" Ash grumbles. "You're not making any sense, Gary. I've never talked to you about my encounter with celebi!"

"Yet." I grin at him. "Don't forget your future is my past. Our timelines overlap a lot. It's kind of hazardous."

Brock slowly raises his head to meet my gaze.

"If it's possible, would I be able to take a look at your research notes?" he asks, furrowing his brow. "As a training breeder any kind of research involving evolution and DNA would be really helpful."

"Come see me in seven years," I reply, deciding against revealing to him that by the end of the following year he will be aspiring to become a pokemon doctor instead.

"What about me? Where will I be in seven years, Gary?" May asks, perking up. "Am I a top coordinator yet?"

"Only time will tell," I say quickly, trying to steer the conversation away from paradox-y directions. "To be honest, I really don't know you guys very well. I only ever see you at Christmas parties. And…"

I turn to Ash and hand him the envelope.

"You need to keep a hold of this. Leave it in your room the next time you go to Pallet Town or something, just somewhere you know it'll be safe. Never lose it. In seven years give it back to me and we'll take it from there."

"But then if you're giving the envelope to me, to give to you in seven years, where I was the one who gave it to you in the first place, who actually wrote this?" he groans in frustration.

"That is one of the many other mysteries surrounding my condition that will never be solved."

"You're messing with my head."

"I have that effect on most people," I manage with a smile.

* * *

A/N: So hopefully this didn't suck. It's been a while since I wrote palletshipping (in fact I'm pretty sure it's only the second palletshipping fic I've ever put up on the internet, since my others have never really taken off before) so I apologise if they're a little out of character. The love will develop soon enough, I promise! /flails around

(Also to readers of Roses, I am so sorry for my creative block. I'll try and get up the next chapter by the end of this month but I've been quite busy and I haven't really had the right mindset for working on respectshipping. I'll try and fix that.)


	2. Sticks and Stones

A/N: Thank you so much to FeraNelia, pokemoncha, a very sweet Anonymous reviewer and AshKetchumForever for your reviews! Thank you for your support, it's really made me happy.

2: Sticks and Stones

_**An Uncharted Section of Forest**_

_**The Sinnoh Region**_

_**2007**_

[Gary is 14, Ash is 15]

_Ash:_

I'm sitting up because I get the feeling that he'll be here soon. Gary promised me that night in The Crabhammer that it was the 1st of February, so here I am, on the 1st of February, waiting up patiently for him while Brock and Dawn sleep on, forgetful and unaware as I've been sitting on this date for a while without saying a word. Not telling gives Gary a little breathing space, after all, I hope.

The first time Gary travels. Will this moment be magical, a proper adventure for the both of us? It feels exciting and new, me being the one to call the shots, who knows things that he doesn't, who gets to see him all messed-up and confused as he's seen me countless times.

As I'm thinking this, I realise I'm being cruel so I stop quickly. Glancing at the digital clock on my pokedex, I sigh, wondering how much longer I'll have to wait on him before I end up nodding off.

The night air is freezing and I'm shivering in my sleeping bag but still I wait. Pikachu was determined to stay up with me for a while but even he has surrendered to the calling of sleep, chest rising and falling slowly, cheeks dimly growing red in irregular intervals as he stirs in is sleep, as he dreams.

It's past one when I hear a rustle in the trees, but when I look up it's only a volbeat, scattered slightly too far away from the rest of the swarm hovering in the distance. After a while it goes away and once again I'm alone, tapping my fingers in time to a song I'm humming in my head, glancing around, listening out for any sort of sound, any at all.

Despite my fondness of seeing Gary all flustered, my heart is racing with a mixture of anticipation and fear of what I am waiting to do. I quickly realise that as much as I want to make him feel inferior to me, even for a moment in exchange for a lifetime of him holding himself over me, Gary will be scared. He will be scared, have no idea where he is, have no idea of how he got here; Gary will be scared out of his mind.

I know if I were to blink and be in a completely different place, stranded in a forest at night, I'd be pretty afraid too.

With these thoughts in mind, I sit back, propped up against a tree trunk, arms folded tightly over my chest, and wait.

...

_Gary:_

I don't know where I am. I really don't know where the fuck I am.

Spinning around wildly, I find myself standing alone, in a forest, in semi pitch blackness. My heart is pounding, loudly, so loudly I feel like any second now it's going to rip me open.

A few seconds ago I was lying in bed, reading about fossilised kabutops findings, and the next thing I know the book was falling from my hands, my hands weren't frigging there, and a moment later I was here, by myself, in a dark forest.

I want to call out for help but I'm a little afraid of the kind of pokemon my yelling will attract; since I was lying in bed I have no pokemon currently on me, and for that I feel foolish.

So I begin to walk, my feet crunching uncomfortably on debris from the trees. The air is freezing, which puzzles me, as it is late August - or at least, it was a few moments ago. I'm praying all of this is a bizarre dream, but it all feels too real to not exist; the dirt being picked up by my feet as I walk, the dampness of the weeds heavily threaded with dew that I'm brushing against, the cold and clean air, the smell of damp and wood and grass.

I cough, sneeze, inhale, and then I'm standing a few feet away from what looks to be a campfire that's releasing wisps of smoke, reaching its dying end.

People, precious people with whom I can hopefully rely on for help.

I run towards the smell of wood smoke with hope rising in my chest, but it is neither quelled nor dashed as I halt in my tracks. Ash, of all people, is sat against a tree, straightening out.

"Gary? You're… in your pyjamas." He sounds a little surprised by this, yet not as I expected.

"Ash? What are you doing here?!"

"I was waiting for you… you look cold, come sit down."

"That's not the problem here! I… I'm losing it, Ashy…!"

He watches me closely.

"Losing it? Losing what?"

I shiver violently.

"My mind," I manage before another shiver wracks my body. "What the fuck is happening…? Just a few seconds ago, I…"

"Don't swear," he says sharply. "Sit down here and explain what happened, okay, Gary? And keep it down, unless you want Dawn and Brock to hear you."

"Dawn… and Brock?" My head is spinning; I know for a fact that Ash was travelling with Brock when he took part in the Hoenn League, but I don't have the faintest idea who Dawn is, unless she's some chick from Hoenn that he decided to pick up along the way.

Ashy-boy motions for me to sit across from him and I squat down in the clearing, warming my hands by the fading fire.

"Ashy, you seem to have a vague idea of what the hell's going on. Do tell. I'm dying to hear it. Some sort of caffeine-induced acid trip?"

"Nothing like that," he says, shaking his head. A small smile tugs at his mouth and I'm suddenly hit with the realisation that he's enjoying knowing what's happening while I'm left so hopelessly in the dark, and it's very irritating.

"Ash, please. Just tell me, alright?"

Seeing he's pushed me far enough, he straightens his back and catches my eye from across the campfire.

"Time travel."I raise an eyebrow.

"You might as well have said alien abduction."

He rolls his eyes. "I'm being serious, Gary."

"Yeah, and _I'm_ being serious!" I hiss. "Ash, I was in my bed back home one second and standing in the middle of a forest the next. For god's sake, please tell me the truth!"

"I am," he says, tiredly, rubbing his temples. He looks sleepy. "Look, Gary, I know this is probably sounding so crazy right now - I mean, it was crazy for me when I found out - but… well, you're a time-traveller. It's difficult to explain, um… well, two years ago - make that one year for you… I mean, you are fourteen now, right? You look it - I was visited by a future you. It was right after I'd been knocked out of the Hoenn League and we went to this really dodgy restaurant… and you were there. You were like, twenty-five or something. Maybe twenty-two? I'm not sure, but anyway, you were older. It was so bizarre.

"You told me that around this time - for me, not for you - you got into genetic research in order to find out how you could time travel. I can't remember how exactly it worked out, but you told me you had some sort of answer. That's why you travel."

Ash's longwinded speech has left me completely stumped.

_I'm a time traveller?_

"This is crazy," I mutter, shaking my head. "It's crazy and illogical and completely insane."

"Oh yeah?" Ash's face is creased into a frown. "If what I'm saying is insane, what do _you_ propose happened, huh?"

I put a hand on my forehead. I do feel a little warm, actually.

"A fever. A fever-induced hallucination. I'm obviously coming down with something."

He eyes me, sceptical.

"No way. That's too far-fetched."

"A dream, then? A crazy-ass dream that'll mean nothing to me when I wake up tomorrow," I try instead, pinching myself hard on the arm. Nothing happens. "Here, you try."

With a heavy sigh he reaches over and pinches me too, as hard as he can, until his arm starts to tremble with the strain.

I bite down on my lip. It's pretty painful; Ashy-boy is a lot stronger than I give him credit for, and I'm still awake, worst luck.

"Okay, okay," I say. He lets go and I examine the mark that he's left on my arm. "So lets say, hypothetically, I believe you and I am, in fact, a time traveller. Why would I tell anyone? Why would _you_ of all people be the one to explain this to me? Why am I not here instead?"

Ash opens his mouth to say something, then closes it again and shakes his head. "I don't know," he says in a small voice. "If it was anybody else telling you, maybe you'd believe them. But I can't do anything else to make you believe me… all the proof I have is in my time capsule box back at home."

...

_Ash:_

Gary's face is very pale. Not that I can blame him at all; what I've told him is enough to shake anybody up. It's a little frustrating that it's taken him this long to catch on, though.

"When will you show me?" he asks, and I shrug.

"When you next go back to Pallet Town and we're the same age? Maybe? I'm not sure. I know you'll see it one day. Since after all… the one who gave it to me is you."

"So who wrote it?"

"Ah, that… well, it's a bit of a Möbius strip, I guess. You told me that I was the one who wrote it, but when you gave it to me it was already written, so as far as I know I've never written it at all. So I don't really know how it exists. But it's true. I mean, you were the one who gave it to me, so I have to believe it."

He frowns and dips his head a little lower, shivering in the darkness.

"This shouldn't be possible." Gary clenches his fists. "Why me? Why is it me who's the time traveller, and nobody else?"

As the campfire flickers and snuffs out, a thin wisp of smoke trailing from its remains, I watch it and I think back to the conversation we had the day I found out the truth. I wonder if now is the right time to say. But then I realise that if Gary doesn't quite believe me, perhaps he'll believe somebody much closer to him.

"Professor Oak… Professor Oak has travelled through time before. I… I met him, back when he was younger than we are now. You told me that, that the encounter made Professor Oak poisoned or something, like he took in some sort of radiation, and that it transferred to you-"

I'm about to continue but Gary is on his feet, suddenly very upset, and angry.

"Don't say that," he hisses at me. "Make up whatever you want in front of me, but don't bring Grandpa into it! Keep these ideas to yourself!"

I can sense that his anger is making him tense, and tension is usually what sets him off. I stand up too.

"Gary…"

"Just shut up."

He squeezes his eyes shut and has his hands clamped tightly over his ears. It reminds me of a lot of times when we were younger; when we got into fights like this he'd often stop listening to me once he'd had enough, screwing his face up and shutting me out completely. I remember fighting over stupid things: fishing rods; sunhats; who got to go on the swing set first; who should get the biggest slice of cake. And then I remember the bad times too: the day I got worked up over a prank that Gary took too far; the time we accidentally broke one of the beakers in Professor Oak's lab; the funeral; when Gary threw my gameboy into the river.

His hands are chipping away and I watch with fascination. I've only ever seen it happen a couple of times before and I feel both amazement and disappointment, because things have ended on a bad note for Gary and myself and he still doesn't believe me, even as he's fading right before my eyes. He feels his hands are no longer there and wrenches his arms so they rest in front of him, plainly disappearing.

"Oh my god…"

"You're going to be okay-"

"Shut up, Ash!"

His tone has gone from fearful to aggressive in a heartbeat and I sit back down again as Dawn stirs. A few moments later she is at my side, mumbling, "Ash? What time is it…? And who were you talking to?"

"Oh… no one," I say, and we both examine the empty clearing, devoid of blue pyjamas and bare feet, lacking a frightened and pissed off time traveller, quiet.

A volbeat dances in the distance.

* * *

_**The Oak Laboratory**_

_**The Kanto Region**_

_**2006**_

[Gary is 14]

_Gary:_

I stand there, seething in anger, wanting with all my might to take Ash by the shoulders and…

And do what? Shake him, scream at him? No, I don't want to do that. Yes I do.

What the hell is happening to me? One moment I'm normal, boring old Gary, the next I'm some sort of time travelling freak and Ash seems to accept this without questioning it? And he's saying I'm some sort of… some sort of genetically altered freak? Like a mutant kid? What the hell is that all about?

What the hell.

I inhale and when I exhale it comes out as a scream rather than a sigh. It's a rather impressive scream, actually; my head is pounding from the power in it, my voice rattling. The sound carries all over the lab. In some rooms it sounds like a wail, a weeping banshee scream that scares the crap out of me, while in others it sounds like a battle cry, like something I once heard in an old war film set during the Heian Era.

And then in the hallway I'm kneeling over in, it sounds as I intended for it to: a sad and frustrated howl.

I hear shuffling and footsteps above my head and a few moments later both Grandpa and Tracey emerge from their rooms. Tracey looks a little haunted by my impressive scream, while Grandpa looks oddly composed, but still very weary and very worried.

"Gary? What happened to you?" he says in a voice that indicates he already knows. My stomach lurches.

"I've been here before, haven't I?" I squeeze out, furrowing my brow. I stare back at him, sweaty and clammy in the August heat, a stark contrast to the coldness of being in the forest with Ash. "You're in on it too, aren't you? I mean, you already know what I'm going to say, right?"

Grandpa hesitates for a few moments, uncertain, before slowly nodding, and that's all I need to know, that's all it takes.

I lean over and throw up.

Tracey yelps and calls, "Oh no, Gary, are you alright?" to which I respond, "I'm fine," once I've caught my breath, wiping my mouth on the back of my sleeve. Grandpa helps me to stand while Tracey sprints off to get a mop and some disinfectant.

Grandpa sits me down on the couch and gets a bowl for me and it reminds me a lot of when I was a kid. I tended to make myself ill a lot after the funeral, when I was still getting used to things. Grandpa liked to call it a grieving phase.

I look down at my hands and picture them disappearing and I can't stop physically shaking as I think of it. I'm not ill. Maybe in my head, but not physically sick. I'm just out of sorts. Disappearing and then reappearing is a sickening feeling in itself, without having to face the fact that _this isn't the first time Grandpa has seen me like this._

He sits down beside me and watches me with a face of concern.

"Is everything alright, Gary?"

"I wonder," I grumble. "Lets just say, Gramps, that today has been very eventful. But you'd know about that, right?"

He sighs.

"Gary, I…"

"How could you do this to me?" I am seething; Grandpa is great and I respect him and I love him, but all this time he has known things about me that I haven't been aware of and he's carried on like it's not something to be fucking concerned about and I'm afraid and scared and he's trying to justify this by giving me a long explanation about how he was going to tell me but the _timing_ was off-

"How could you leave me in the dark about this? You knew, you already _knew_, I can tell, and you're treating this like it's not important at all! When were you going to tell me? How the hell is this happening?"

As I continue to fire questions at him, Grandpa sits back and rubs the bridge of his nose. The darkness outside indicates it's very late and normally I'd feel bad for waking him at this hour, but I am too furious to be considerate.

"What year is this, anyway? Am I even back in the right time again?"

"Enough, Gary, enough," Gramps cuts in with a frown. He puts a hand on my shoulder and I shrug it off, sitting back in my seat, quiet and fuming. He sounds tired. "If you're concerned, the date is the 18th of August 2006. You are fine and you are back where you were to begin with." He pauses for a few moments, allowing time for the information to sink into my mind, before continuing.

"Though it sounds very farfetched… it's true. About two years ago, an older version of yourself visited me one day in the lab. It was unnerving, of course, but I had no choice but to believe then, didn't I?" Grandpa frowns. "He - you - told me that you'd come from the year 2010, _2010_! And I thought, how strange, how amazingly strange, and how peculiar. But it was too late to be in denial because - well, you were already stood right in front of me. How spectacular indeed."

"Then-"

"He said," Grandpa cuts in quickly, "that I shouldn't tell you, because that wasn't how things were supposed to be. That, and he wanted you to spend as much time as you could without knowing. He said that you'd be happier that way… and I agreed."

"That doesn't give you the right to leave me in the dark!" I protest, but then I stop struggling and fall silent.

_That wasn't how things were supposed to be, huh?_

Does that mean I can't change the past? Isn't that the exact purpose of a time traveller?

Grandpa watches me coolly.

"You're right in that you had the right to know. However, if a future version of my grandson tells me it's best to wait, I think he's probably right. After all, nobody knows what's best for you better than yourself, eh, Gary?"

I frown and lean back, sighing heavily.

"This is going to take some getting used to," I murmur. My head hurts and my skin feels hot. Maybe I am ill, after all.

"Tell me about it," Gramps chuckles. "Just try not to throw up the next time it happens, alright?"

"Got it," I mutter, and the two of us share an uneasy laugh as the weight of the future bears on our shoulders. I hand him back the bucket, walk around where Tracey is cleaning, head up to my room, curl up under the covers.

I know now that whatever happens from here, things will never really be what they once were.

...

_**The Next Day**_

...

_Gary:_

I wake up in familiar surroundings and breathe a sigh of relief despite myself. The same yellow walls, the same polished floorboards, the same blue bed sheets…

As I lie in bed, a nagging headache drilling holes in my forehead, I close my eyes and listen to the pidgey crowing overhead, inhale the faint smell of burning toast and feel the warmth of the sun, intense and overwhelming. When I open my eyes I see a photograph of me, Grandpa and Daisy smiling at me from the frame and I smile back, a sickly grimace that matches the sickly feeling in my stomach.

I decide that there's no chance I'll get anything done feeling like this so I dress low-key, disregarding the lab coat hanging from the hook on the back of my bedroom door, and leave my room behind. For whatever reason the lab seems even more quiet than usual and it's a little unnerving.

Then, as I descend down the staircase and amble towards the kitchen, I hear more voices and tense up.

Mrs Ketchum is sitting at the kitchen table when I enter the room, drinking a cup of coffee and telling Gramps a story about planting some forget-me-nots and forgetting to water them, and how funny and very punny the situation was, but she stops to glance up at me as I make my presence known.

"Oh, hello there, Gary," she smiles, talking in a gentle voice. "Professor Oak told me you weren't feeling well after your little trip. Poor thing. I hope you feel better today."

I catch Grandpa's eye and he replies with a shrug, "Don't give me that look, young man. The thing is, Delia has known for quite some time as well."

My mouth falls open, and Mrs Ketchum beams up at me.

"The truth is, Gary, Ash told me some time after you revealed your gift to him, and I was a little sceptical. But you know, I've seen it. I've seen _you_." Then, noting the expression on my face, she quickly adds, "But please don't worry, sweetie, I'm not here to say or do anything other than have breakfast with Professor Oak. Your secret will remain safely with me."

"Great, what a comfort," I mumble. "Who else knows? I'm not trying to sound bitter but it's a little annoying when I'm the time traveller here and I'm still the last to know about it."

"Tracey still doesn't know yet," Grandpa chimes in helpfully. I glance around.

"Where is Tracey, anyway?"

"Well, he was so worried after the episode last night that he decided to go to Viridian City to stock up on some medical supplies," Grandpa informs me, taking a sip of his coffee. "You should probably thank him for being so concerned."

"I will do, once he gets back."

I sit down at the table and Gramps passes me a cup of coffee. It tastes bitter but I drink it anyway, wondering what happens from here.

"So I'm a genetically altered kid who can time travel." I look up. "Gramps, last night Ash told me you were the one who travelled in the first place. He told me something happened that messed up the both of us."

Grandpa is silent for a few moments, before nodding.

"That is true. However, I didn't get quite as nauseated since I wasn't the one doing the actual travelling; I was just a passenger."

I watch him, holding my coffee in both hands.

"So you were transported to the future? When was this?"

"Forty years ago for me," he says with a shrug. "For me this was a long, long time ago. Although the time I actually appeared in was about three years ago, give or take a few months. A lot of things were different… I remember being very scared."

"I guess when you put it that way, travelling only one year into the future isn't so bad," I mutter. "Even so… how did all of Celebi's time travel juice get into your DNA? Why don't you time travel the way I do? Or are you a time traveller as well?"

"All good questions. And all good questions I don't have definite answers for. My best guess is by being directly in contact with the celebi during its travel through time. Not many people meet a celebi directly, and even fewer are able to time travel. We simply don't know the effects of its powers on people. The same goes for all legendaries. I recall there being some trouble in the Hoenn region a while back when man absorbed the powers of pokemon."

"Yeah, but that doesn't seem like the same sort of thing," I put in helpfully. "I'm pretty sure that it was to do with ancient artefacts. There was an article sent to me about it while I was still studying on the island."

Mrs Ketchum leans forward. "So Gary, is this the first time for you? You know… your first time travelling?" Her voice has lowered, as though she expects hidden cameras and tape recorders to be stashed into every cupboard and cereal box in the kitchen. I blink.

"Last night was, yeah," I say. "It was strange. It's like… it's like I was crumbling away. First my hands went, then my feet, then it kind of cornered me, ate away at me. It's like… I could feel my body going, but it was in two places at once, and I could feel both those places - at the same time, as I was disappearing. It was such a weird feeling…"

Mrs Ketchum appears sympathetic.

"I'm sure you'll get used to it over time," she tries, and that, if possible, makes me feel worse.

"I don't think I wanna do it again. It was bad enough the first time."

"The truth is, I don't think you have much of a choice, Gary," Grandpa says, his eyes filled with a mixture of amusement and pity. "But I'm sure there's a meaning behind it all. For whatever purpose it may serve, I'm sure you were born with this ability for a good reason."

I picture Ash's face lighting up, amused, anxious, oddly patient in the glow of the campfire, and I try for a weak smile.

"Yeah. Maybe."

* * *

_**17 Kanto Route 1**_

_**The Kanto Region**_

_**2012**_

[Ash is 20]

_Ash:_

I wake up the next day and Gary still isn't back yet. As I open my eyes and see an empty space beside me, disappointment surges through my chest. In these recent months his time travelling has been very abrupt, lasting for a maximum of five to six hours. He's been gone since yesterday afternoon and although I tried to keep myself occupied with various new techniques for incoming trainers fighting for frontier symbols, it's difficult to come up with anything when my mind is so full of what ifs.

As I stare up at my ceiling, wondering when Gary's planning on coming back to the present, my mobile begins to vibrate. I reach over to my bedside table and press it against my ear.

"…Hello?"

"Ash, hi! How have you been?"

I sit up in bed, waking Pikachu with the sudden movement. May hasn't been in touch with me in months. For the past year or so she's been moving around a lot due to her careers as both a script supervisor and contest host, and most recently she landed in Unova, where as far as I know she's been situated for about six months. Being the kind of flighty person she is it comes as no surprise that she's taken so long to call.

"May? What's up? It's rare to hear you so perky at this time in the morning."

"Oh, be quiet," she says without a hint of malice. "I'm in Kanto again! Miss Vivian dropped out of the judging panel at the last minute for the Kanto Grand Festival and they called _me _to take care of things! How great is that?"

"That's awesome, May!" I put the phone on speaker before climbing out of bed.

"The thing is," she continues as I begin to dress, "the Grand Festival doesn't begin for another two weeks and I'm so bored! Can I come over to your place, Ash? Please?"

"You mean Drew isn't entertaining you?" I ask with a grin, opening the curtains. (No sign of Gary.) I can practically hear her scowl from the other end of the phone.

"Get real, Ash! Like Drew'd have any time to spare on _me_ right now. He hasn't visited me in Striaton City in three months!"

"Is he still apartment hunting?" I wonder as I enter the kitchen. (No sign of Gary.) "I thought by now he'd have pegged down a place. I mean, he's a smooth talker no matter how you look at it. I expected him to waltz into any apartment building he wanted and have the owners in the palm of his hand."

"Well, that's Drew for you," she sighs. "Anyway, I'm at the docks in Vermillion City. I can catch a train back to Viridian for ten, so can I drop by, please? I mean, it's been ages. We need to catch up!"

There's a slight whine in her voice that makes me feel inclined to agree to her idea.

"Sure thing. I'll be waiting!" As I'm about to hang up Pikachu makes a frantic hand gesture and I say quickly, "Oh, and Pikachu says hi."

"Hey there, Pikachu," she calls, and I can hear the smile in her voice. "Oh, wait, I've got an incoming call from… Max? Hmm, okay. I'll catch you later, Ash!"

"See you." The line goes dead. I fix some breakfast for me and some breakfast for Pikachu. We both enter the main room. (Still no sign of Gary.)

It feels a little lonely so I tune into the radio to fill the house with some sort of noise.

"_Welcome to Good Morning Kanto! This is Mary, your charming and sweet presenter for the breakfast show! I hope all you sleepyheads are listening carefully or you'll miss today's special song quiz from the soundtrack of Slateport Girls 2008 remix'd!"_

...

_**Later**_

...

_Ash:_

Sometime leaning towards 11 I hear a knock at the door. Pikachu utters an excited cry and bounds over to the door, and I mark my place in the issue of Battle Network Magazine I've just been reading before heading towards the front door.

As I go to open the door May throws her arms around me and I take a step back. It's been a while since I last saw May and she's looking as perky as ever. The colour of her bandana changes every year; this year it's a burnt orange in the spirit of the zodiac, since if my memory serves me correctly 2012 is the year of the dragonite.

"Ash, it's been so long!" She pulls away and Pikachu hops onto her shoulders. "It's good to see you too, Pikachu!"

"Go on inside," I tell her, picking up her bags. They're quite heavy. "Do you have a place to stay yet or do you want to crash here for a few days?"

"No, no, I already have a gorgeous room booked in the deluxe suite at the Indigo Plateau," she sighs, face a little pink. "God, you should see it. It looks absolutely fantastic. Like something in one of those Celebrity Homes magazines."

"Complete with berry bowls and champagne?"

"Complete with berry bowls and champagne," she repeats, grinning.

May slips off her jacket and hangs it on the spare hook that Gary and I reserve for visitors, before following Pikachu into the main room. I set down her bags by the door and head into the kitchen.

"Do you want a drink of anything? You must be thirsty. After all, Unova to Kanto is kind of a long ferry ride, and it is pretty warm today…"

"No, it's all good," she calls. "I bought some pecha berry iced tea at the train station, so my thirst has been quenched."

"So tell me what working in Unova is like," I say as I return to the main room and sit down beside her. "I mean, obviously I travelled there before, but it's such a busy place, you know? It sounds amazing."

"You should come visit me some time, then," she laughs, tucking a stray hair behind her ear. "It's… well, it's incredible. Like a whole other world. You'd love it, Ash - everything is so full of life."

I think back to Unova, and how busy everything was, yet how different and new it was as well. We had some good times there, Iris and Cilan and me. It's a shame that we had to grow up.

"Hey, so where's Gary, anyway?" May chirps, glancing around. "Don't tell me you guys had another fight again. Instead of skulking back to Pallet Town every time the two of you butt heads perhaps it's about time you guys tried talking things out."

"Hey, Gary and I are fine," I protest, a little annoyed at her tone. We may have had our fair share of disagreements since we began living together, but that's nothing for her to be concerned about. "He's… gone, again."

"Gone, or _gone_ gone?"

"Gone gone," I repeat, and we sit in silence for a few moments before she says, "Oh. Any idea where?"

I can't help but smile.

"The Crabhammer."

May's mouth falls open. "No way! September 9th?"

"Yep. He hasn't come back yet, but when he does I'm sure he's going to find it funny."

We laugh a little. When we fall silent once again, May turns to me and says, "How do you avoid thinking about it, when he goes away?"

I blink. "What?"

She suddenly seems a little embarrassed and leans back against the jade green couch cushions.

"It's just… I mean, obviously how me and Drew see each other - it's not like with you and Gary. I know that, I mean - well, we're just rivals, even now, but like… we've been travelling together so long it feels kind of like things have gotten better between us. But now he's looking for an apartment, we haven't seen each other in a while. I feel like I'm slowly going crazy waiting for him to visit. Isn't that dumb?" She laughs nervously. "I keep throwing myself into work so I don't have to think about it, but when I have time to kill like now I always find myself wondering how I've gotten so needy."

May turns to me, expression serious.

"How do _you _do it, Ash? Every time Gary vanishes, how do you occupy the time?"

I frown and fold my arms. I haven't been asked this one before. If I knew she was going to ask me this I would've gotten an answer ready.

"Um… well, for starters, I have Pikachu to keep me company." Pikachu beams up at me and I rub behind its cheek bulbs. "I guess I do the same as you, sometimes; I go and face the challengers fighting for my frontier symbol, practise new moves with Pikachu, reward our efforts or train severely. When I don't have anything else to do I go for walks, or I visit my mom, or Professor Oak, or somebody else. I call people up, or I go shopping for groceries, or I attend conferences and meetings involving the Battle Frontier."

I smile.

"And sometimes, although it's rare, Gary comes back, from a different time, and we discuss. Though like I said, that's only happened a few times before."

May sighs.

"Lucky. Maybe if Drew was a time traveller I could kick his future self's ass for not visiting me sooner."

"Not lucky," I correct her with a dry laugh, "definitely not lucky. But not entirely unlucky, either. I guess when there's absolutely nothing else to do, knowing he's going to come back sort of inspires me to weed the garden."

She watches me for a few seconds, wondering if that was a joke or not, before dissolving into giggles.

"If my hotel room had a garden I'd probably do the same," she admits, and then we both burst into peals of laughter.

* * *

A/N: So this was updated slightly behind schedule but I made it a longer chapter to satisfy ya'll. I hope everybody was in character enough. Despite Gary's mature side shown in later episodes I still firmly believe he would freak out - as would anybody - upon discovering he is a time traveller, so I stand by the belief that he would get a little snappy.

Also, I hope I didn't disappoint all you contestshippers out there who were hoping for a more heavily implied relationship. I leave it up to you for now to decide whether May's comment of "we're just rivals!" is sincere or not.

(And I only just realised that I actually uploaded this on the eve of ContestShipping day 2013, so that's a freaky coincidence. So uhm, happy CS day to you guys, I guess!)


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